Magnet Maker Sues Liberty Mutual Over Pollution Cleanup Costs

Liberty Mutual was hit with a lawsuit from an Illinois magnet maker seeking insurance coverage for more than $4 million in costs incurred to comply with an Illinois environmental agency’s remediation order.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. has refused to indemnify Arnold Engineering Co. for the remediation costs, citing various pollution exclusions under a series of commercial general liability policies issued to Arnold’s former corporate parent companies in the 1970s and 1980s.

But those exclusions don’t apply when the alleged pollution was a permitted activity or was “sudden and accidental,” among other exceptions, Arnold said in a suit filed Tuesday in ...